


Seasonal

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Autumn!T'Challa, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bucky Barnes Feels, Each person is a season, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Personified Seasons, Random & Short, Spring!Sam, Summer!Steve, Tony Feels, Writing Prompt, winter!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 15:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11293950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Tony never meant to love the seasons, that was just how life worked out for him. When he met the seasons it was autumn and T’Challa, Autumn’s human name, was amazing. But then one day he came home and his skin was snow white, his hair was long and fine, and his eyes were haunted. Tony had been confused and a little pissed off but Winter explained what had happened.Based onthisprompt, except instead of changing hair color the whole person changes.





	Seasonal

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a prompt and I _had_ to write it before I worked on another project. So here it is!
> 
> Each person Tony is with represents one season.

Tony never meant to love the seasons, that was just how life worked out for him. When he met the seasons it was autumn and T’Challa, Autumn’s human name, was amazing. But then one day he came home and his skin was snow white, his hair was long and fine, and his eyes were haunted. Tony had been confused and a little pissed off but Winter explained what had happened. This season went by James, or Bucky if someone knew him well, but he only really liked Pepper’s assistant Natasha. Tony assumed it was because she used to be Russian and Russia seemed like a cold country. Tony does not like Winter.

Spring is soft and caring, well spoken and nurturing, but when Sam felt strongly about something he pressed his point. Tony liked Sam alright at first but by the end of the season he had been dreading Summer. Summer went by Steve and he was passionate, strong willed, and more than a little reckless. More than once Tony had to bail him out of jail because he did something stupid for a cause but Tony had taken a liking to him too. Steve might have been unpredictable and at times made Tony want to rip his hair out in frustration but they had a lot in common. They both poured everything they had into the things they cared about, sometimes without thinking, but it usually paid off. Sometimes Tony thinks that Summer could use some of Spring’s calm because Sam was just as caring and passionate but he was responsible about it. Then he and Steve would get into some shenanigans together and Rhodey had to bail them out looking unimpressed and they’d laugh together.

_Autumn_

T’Challa knew Tony liked him best, it was easy to see. When the other seasons were in control it wasn’t that he didn’t see what was happening, but he had no control then. The other seasons knew it too but T’Challa secretly liked that Tony liked him best. He wasn’t entirely certain why given that Tony had the most in common with Summer as wild and reckless as Steve was. Or even Sam, who was intelligent and shrewd and always understanding of Tony. Winter though; Tony did not like him at all. He knew Bucky was frosty and cold, closed off, but with the way people hated him T’Challa understood why. Bucky was difficult but once he thawed a little T’Challa thought they’d have a lot in common. After all people thought Tony was cold and heartless too.

When Tony sees him he breaks out into a wide grin, “you aren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow,” he says. He immediately sheds his jacket, brief case, and all other notions of work at the door and crawls into T’Challa’s lap.

“Human semantics,” he says, “I appear when it is appropriate to be here.” Sometimes that was early, he rarely showed up late, but he was here when he needed to be. The leaves were changing and the air was cooling into sweater weather. Tony’s favorite season, T’Challa knew, because he had told him when they met.

“Well,” Tony says softly, “I’m glad I get an extra day with you.” T’Challa is happy too because he missed Tony.

They play in the leaves often, raking them into piles and jumping into them even when they land in leaves that were wet and a little rotted. They also prepare for Halloween, carving pumpkins and baking pumpkin seeds that they gave out to their friends. The season was soft and pleasant as the smell of leaves, pumpkin spice, and cinnamon filled the air. Tony probably eats fifteen pumpkin pies before T’Challa feels the season start to fade. Their last night they sit by a fire, huddled together in the cold while they roast marshmallows and T’Challa wishes he could stay longer.

_Winter_

He knows Tony doesn’t like him but it isn’t until half way through the season that he discovers why. Bucky was the season of death, depression, and isolation so he rarely paid attention to others. It was hard when he felt so cut off from the world, but this time the news was left on and a mention of the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark fills the time slot. They died in a car accident having slipped on some ice in the middle of a snowstorm. Bucky has no memory of this but it isn’t unusual. He didn’t have a very goo memory.

When Tony gets home he had made him a coffee with nothing in it because that’s how Tony prefers it. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he says softly and he leaves it at that because he knew Tony didn’t react well when pushed. Summer pushed him often and the results were explosive and passionate. Bucky wished he could be more like Steve.

Time passes in the usual cool, lonely way it did every winter and Bucky waits it out like always. He wanted to disappear as often as people wished him away but he had no choice but to stay until Spring arrived.

“Do you remember them?” Tony asks him one night and Bucky shakes his head.

“I can’t… can’t remember them all. Winter isn’t the season of remembrance. I’m sorry,” he tells him again because he didn’t like being like this either. He wished he could be nurturing like Sam, or warm like T’Challa, or even passionate and bright like Steve. But he wasn’t any of those things. He is the season of the barren, or death. Few could survive the winter.

“Do you… do you feel bad?” Tony asks even though he just apologized. He would have a hard time believing that a season as filled with death and destruction as him would feel guilty too.

“Of course,” Bucky says, “it’s why the holidays are around this time. People need hope when they have to deal with the coldness I bring.”

Something, Bucky isn’t sure what, changes after that. Slowly Tony starts warming up to him, bringing him small trinkets made of glass that reminded him of icicles hanging from roofs during the winter. Bucky has never gotten gifts from Tony before even though the rest of the seasons did. Tony brings him other things too, like holly and mittens, and he even buys Bucky his own mug for hot chocolate.

When Bucky feels the season coming to a close he and Tony are sitting by the fire for warmth and Tony is telling him about some design he didn’t understand. Sam would be able to keep up intellectually but Bucky isn’t Sam. He’s content to sit around like this with Tony though because it reminded him of the way Tony treated Autumn and they all knew T’Challa was Tony’s favorite.

_Spring_

Sam wakes up next to Tony and smiles because this was a rarity. Tony had insomnia so Sam didn’t often get opportunities to surprise him with breakfast in bed even though it was one of his favorite things to do. He is the season of renewal and life and Tony needed so much of that when he first got here. Tony was cold, closed off and unwilling to open up much like Winter was even though neither of them saw it. Sam did his best to thaw Tony out but Summer is the season for melting away inhibitions and Sam thought Steve could have done a little less of that.

He liked Summer well enough but he was the more levelheaded one. T’Challa still had some of the impulses that came with the summer but he was much more mellow too, a calm medium between the reckless passion that Steve brought and the cool depression that came with Bucky. Sam was a go between for the extremes that were Bucky and Steve. Sometimes the other seasons wished they could trade places with each other but Sam was comfortable with his season. He liked his nurturing nature, the way he could coax the life back into the barren landscape around him. He liked the flowers that bloomed, and the rainy days that brought them. He was Spring for a reason and he trusted that.

When Tony wakes up he grins wide at Sam, “breakfast!” he says excitedly and Sam wonders if it’s something more than eggs that excites him. They all knew that Tony liked Autumn best and Winter least. Winter was gone now and he was only two seasons away from Autumn. Summer never liked playing second fiddle to another season and Bucky thought he deserved Tony’s hatred but Sam knew he needed time. Like all things love grows and Sam waited patiently to foster that love with Tony, to bring him to an understanding with the seasons.

He thinks he does a good job because Tony sometimes buys him gifts, small trinkets that reminded him of spring. Sam is enthused with the garden space and the herbs he gets to plant though he hopes Summer won’t kill them all. Sam appreciates the houseplants too, and the rain head shower that reminds him of those lovely rainy days that were helping his tulips in the garden grow.

Tony takes him to green houses and parks and Sam thaws the spaces around him, slowly breathing life back into his surroundings. Tony thaws too, slowly but surely and Sam enjoys watching the transformation. He knew that Tony would need more time to properly love him but he was the season of life. He had faith that he could make the love grow.

_Summer_

Tony finds Steve eating ice cream on the beach with aviators on looking out at the waves. “It’s still a bit chilly out there,” Tony warns him. Steve just grins though, taking that as a challenge and Tony sighs, going after him because someone had to make sure Steve didn’t die in the waves. They wash up on the beach hours later laughing and shivering but they still get ice cream afterwards because that was just beach tradition.

Steve suggests they take an impromptu road trip and Tony hops on it, needing a break from work and thankfully Pepper is understanding because they’re already half way across the country before he remembers to tell her where he is. Steve gets arrested in three different states, a new record, and Tony bails him out every time. They probably party too much but when they aren’t dragging their asses home a little too late Steve is off fighting for some cause.

He goes along with Steve’s whims because it was nice to have someone as reckless and ridiculous as him around again and Steve tells the president of the United States to fuck off right to his face because he disagrees with his policies. Pepper and the Board think he’s a liability, and some people call like to call him a vigilante instead of an activist but Steve points out how much they love Batman when he does it so Tony laughs and goes along with it.

They go out to museums, beaches, and art galleries especially. Steve was a naturally passionate person and art was something he felt channeled that. He liked abstract the best but given how chaotic it is Tony isn’t very surprised. Sometimes Summer exhausts him but Steve always has the energy to do more, to see more, and he always talks Tony into going along with it no matter how tired he is.

When the end of the season starts to come Tony is secretly glad that T’Challa will be back because Summer can be tiring even if he loved Steve’s free spirit.

_Autumn_

T’Challa can feel the shift in Tony’s feelings- this was his third time with Tony but the other’s have all been with him twice. He can feel Tony’s fondness for them growing, even for Winter, and he initially feels jealous. He liked being the favorite, it gave him a special status but he lets it go because he is the season of change and adaptation. T’Challa likes being special, but he was the one who met Tony first. In a way he would always be special in a way the others weren’t.

_Winter_

When Winter comes back Tony tries to be more accommodating this time even though he misses T’Challa’s warm pies and leaf piles. This time he calls Bucky into the kitchen to make holiday cookies, and they send out Christmas invitations together. Bucky shows him how to hang mistletoe and Pepper finds herself standing under it with Natasha one night so Tony points it out. He and Bucky are equally thrilled when the kiss leads to something more and Tony adds Natasha to his list of people to buy gifts for. Bucky helps him choose the gifts because he has an uncanny ability to choose things people want during the holiday season.

One night Bucky drags him out side and Tony shivers against the cool winds but he finds the beauty in the falling snowflakes. Bucky steps back from Tony and holds his hands together as frost builds up between them. It takes several moments but Bucky eventually hands him a gift and Tony marvels at the ice rose Bucky has made. “You guys can _do_ this?” he asks and Bucky frowns.

“Have none of the other seasons showed you this?” he asks and Tony shakes his head. Bucky grins and disappears into the mansion for a bit before he comes back with skates and urges Tony forward. He makes an ice rink on the lawn and they laugh while Tony almost slips on the ice well into the night. By the time they go in Tony is freezing and sure he has frost bite but Bucky is there handing him hot chocolate and heavy fleece blankets to warm him back up again and he doesn’t care.

*

Slowly Tony learns to love all the seasons like he loved T’Challa from the beginning. Winter was the hardest but he eventually learns to love the beauty of the frozen trees, the way the snow fell, hot drinks, and the way his breath fogged the air he breathed out. They skate together, and play in the snow, and holidays are always a hit regardless of where Tony was or how the people around him chose to celebrate.

Spring soon became Tony’s favorite person to talk to about designs because Sam was always the most excited. T’Challa could keep up but he didn’t have the passion for environmentally friendliness that Sam did and he loved Tony’s clean energy products. He always had new ideas too, and Tony’s office was always filled with flowers and plants in the spring. Sam also showed him how to cheat with the tulips because they were being a pain and Sam planted red ones this year and he wanted to see them early so he makes them grow from the ground and bloom with a little power. People compliment Tony’s garden and Tony always credit’s Sam’s green thumb for the pretty array of flowers that populated the space around his house.

Summer was hard to tame but Tony eventually learns to calm him with late night walks on the beach, impromptu picnics in the forest, and new charity events he needed someone to plan because Pepper was too busy. Steve takes to it all easily and slowly that impulsive edge takes a calmer turn. Steve still woke him up in the middle of the night to harass him about random trips to new countries he’s never seen before but Tony tries to schedule them around business so he isn’t running out on his responsibilities for a whole season. Once he even manages to surprise Steve with a surprise trip to Egypt and he marvels at the pyramids and the humidity.

When Autumn comes back Tony already knows how to deal with T’Challa but he’ll never tire of the way they decorated the house for Halloween, or the way they got lost in haunted mazes that always scared Tony. Tony learns things about the harvest and plant life from T’Challa and on one memorable occasion he spontaneously grows a pumpkin patch right in the middle of one of Sam’s gardens. Tony laughs and shakes his head, looking forward to the way Sam would react when he found them there in the spring.

Winter comes back late that year and it takes so long that Tony grows worried for the season. Sam had given him warnings of a warming planet but Tony hadn’t anticipated missing his least favorite season until he realizes he loved Bucky as much as he loved the rest of the seasons. When he finally comes he’s just in time for Tony’s surprise and the look on his face when Tony presents him with tickets to visit Russia is worth the wait. The air is cool in the country but the colors are bright and beautiful, much like Bucky himself. It was the reason Tony chose Russia. Bucky surprises him when he asks to go to Romania next because Bucky is not one of the impulsive seasons but he happily obliges and learns that Bucky has a preference for Eastern Europe. He liked the food and culture and Tony files the information away for the next time he wanted to do something with Bucky that distinguished him from the other seasons.

Each season was different and unique in its own way and Tony loved them all in the way they all deserved. They all loved him too, each in different ways and Tony appreciated that there was never a dull moment. He liked living life in a state of unpredictability and dating the seasons he was never left in one state too long, plus it gave him months to make sure each season would get the appreciation they deserved. Often times he takes Sam on nature walks, and Steve to small art galleries across the world. T’Challa loved learning about the traditions of fall festivals and Tony bought books on the subject, always thrilled when T’Challa’s face lit up in happiness. Bucky was harder because he was distant, but like his corresponding season there was a warmth underneath the chill and the holidays were his favorite thing during his season. Tony took him to all sorts of holiday celebrations that took place in the winter all over the world, but he always made sure they ended up in Eastern Europe at some point.

Tony was lucky to have the seasons, to experience them in a way no one else could. He thinks they might be lucky to have him too.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Revolutionary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14080956) by [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42)




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